


A Relegated Marriage

by Chibifukurou



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Arranged Marriage, F/M, a darker take on Maia Drazhar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:13:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29279763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chibifukurou/pseuds/Chibifukurou
Summary: Csethiro's was not truly relegated. Her father had sent her to Cethoree to be a companion to her aging Great Aunt Arbelan.At least that was the official reason his rebellious eldest daughter well known for her dislike of the new Empress was being sent away.The fact this meant she was the only remaining marriage candidate who could not have been involved in either plot against the crown. Either by blood or by presence at court. That had been an unexpected side effect.
Relationships: Csethiro Ceredin/Maia Drazhar
Comments: 3
Kudos: 38
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	A Relegated Marriage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [noun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/noun/gifts).



Csethiro had not been relegated. That was only true in the most technical sense.

She was her father’s eldest and most rebellious daughter by his first wife. And she had made no secret of her dislike of Csoru in all the years they had grown up together.

A rebellious daughter from a previous marriage at odds with the current Empress. The Emperor with no eligible sons of her age.

Her father had ever been politic. Sending her away to care for an aging aunt, long since relegated to a social backwater. Either she would learn to do as he requested and take a marriage to a lower nobleman, or she would remain here until she was of appropriate age to act as a maiden aunt to her nieces and nephews.

Either option would gain favor of the Empress. Csethiro could have told him how little that favor meant to her. He had not asked. Just as he had not asked anyone’s opinion before cutting off all support to Great Aunt Arbelan. In hopes of being favored for his loyalty to the Emperor.

A hope that had born no fruit.

Relegation suited her well enough. She dined with Arbelan at luncheon and supper. The rest of her days were left to her discretion. Cethoree was a fine estate and well appointed.

While Arbelan was put aside for the sake of the crown, she had not angered her husband, the Emperor. So Cethoree predominantly resembled a country estate rather that a prison.

The grounds were large and well cared for. She could a horse out to ride among the rolling hills that surrounded the estate. Pleasant diversions appropriate for a woman of noble birth were plentiful. Arbelan had even built a well-appointed library.

It was simply that the ladies of the house could not leave and no one could come to Cethoree without the Emperor’s approval.Within the first month, Csethiro had given up propriety and begun dueling in the east garden. Some mix of boredom and peek guiding her actions.

She had expected Arbelan to comment. To recommend she find more ladylike pursuits. Their meals continued on as usual. If Arbelan noticed Csethiro’s broadening shoulders and how her skin tanned to a misty gray rather than the bone white that was appropriate for a woman of her birth.

In time, Csethiro found other pursuits; reading the books of law and military history that stacked the library shelves; learning bawdy drinking songs from the staff; even becoming a horsewoman of some skill.

Soon it seemed her days had no more room in them. Something she had thought impossible when she had first arrived. If the rest of her days were spent here, she would not find them wasted. Nor would she beg her father to bring her back to court, to be placed under the care of some wastrel husband.

*

Csethiro was out riding when the messenger came. She only knew something happened when she returned and a maid was waiting for her in the stable.

They did not even wait for her to bathe before shepherding her to Aunt Arbelan’s parlor.

The few times Csethiro had been here before Arbelan had been engrossed in a embroidery project chatting amiably with her few remaining ladies in waiting or engrossed in a book.

This time her aunt sat, back straight as a saber. Her eyes moved from the door to the letter in her hands and back. Her ears were lowered until they almost touched her shoulders. The paper was of good quality but it was already going soft in certain spots from constant handling.

“Csethiro, come sit down.”

Csethiro sat in the chair across from her, perched as near the edge as she could, lest the mud dotting the hem of her skirts marred the fabric.

“The Emperor has died, and all his eldest sons with him.”

The words made little sense at first. Varenechibel had been an established Emperor since the days of her Grandfather. To have him gone and his entire line with him seemed as impossible as the sky falling down. “How?”

“They tell us it was an accident,” Arbelan let out a contemptuous huff. “An air ship accident the only time in a decade that all the main heirs were traveling with the Emperor.”

It had not hit Csethiro yet, that such an impossible event would have to be planned. Though she could not find herself too much at fault. She had less time with the knowledge than Arbelan. The lapse was understandable, if foolish. “What will happen now?”

“We expect Archduke Maia will take the throne. What he will do for us, I do not know. We may be called back for the funeral, or he may leave us here until other matters are more firmly settled.”

Archduke Maia. The mad prince. Csethiro had not remembered his existence. Of course, he would not have been on an airship with the Emperor. He had been relegated since before he was even born.

“As for you, we expect your father will call you back to court at the earliest chance. You are less than a hand-span of years older than the new Emperor. One of the three top candidates if our memory of court serve.”

That was enough to send Csethiro reeling against the back of the chair. Marriage did not seem as distant and impossible as the death of the Emperor. Her the first wife of the Emperor. Just as her Great Aunt had been before her.

Arbelan’s eyes softened then, her posture easing from its military straightness. Her ears rose to a comforting angle. “It is not as bad as you might think, being wife to the Emperor.”

“To a mad boy who knows not the court.” Csethiro replied. Her anger taking control of her tongue as it had ever been want to do.

“Mind yourself, child,” Arbelan replied. A weaker reprimand than Csethiro deserved. “Wether you are to marry him our not, he is our Emperor. I am Drazhar. My life is his to command.”

The second sentence was a dagger to her gut as the reprimand had not been. Csethero was not Drazhar. Her relegation was not mandated by the Emperor. Her actions were still a reflection on her Aunt. Who required the Emperor’s good will.

A new Emperor could mean Arbelan’s relegation was lifted or it could see her relegated away from the only home she had known for nearly forty years. “We are sorry, Aunt Arbelan.”

“You were overcome, and we called you in without allowing you time to appoint yourself. Think nothing of it.” Arbelan waved her away.”We will see you at supper. Once you have had a chance to compose yourself.”

Csethiro took the request to leave with what grace she could. Gathering her skirts in a slight curtsey before making her way to the door.

Arbelan’s eyes did not follow her out. They were pinned once again to the missive in her hands. What must it be like to find your prison’s keys held by a unknown boy barely a quarter of your age, when for so long it had been held by a man you knew as only a wife could?

*

The summons back to court did not come.

Arbelan was not summoned for the funeral. Csethiro’s father sent missives that spoke of possible engagements for the first few weeks. Then they stopped. Replaced by the formal letters he had sent once per month since she had come to Cethoree.

The estate, which had begun feeling like a home, once more felt like a prison. Had Csethiro not learned of the Emperor’s death from her Aunt’s own lips and if they all were not wearing mourning black, Csethiro would think she had imagined the whole matter of the Emperor’s death.

Her father’s letters did not even mention the new Emperor. Nor did he see fit to discuss court gossip. Aunt Arbelan learned a little from what few friends she still maintained at court. The news was still nearly two weeks old by the time they got it and the letters were euphemistic in nature. They sparingly spoke of unrest in the court over Maia’s age, lack of elvish blood, and his policies. The first two problems could have been guessed by the most inept of courtiers and the last gave them little information, since no policies were actually mentioned. Least the King view the writer as showing contempt.

Then, a little over a month before Winternight, all contact ceased. It was two weeks before any letters came. When they did they were full of rumors and suppositions, but boiled down to the fact that there had been an attempted coup spearheaded by the Chancellor and the widows of the previous Archdukes.

“Fools!” had been the entirety of Aunt Arbelan’s commentary on that.

Csethiro’s father began writing of marriage to the Emperor again. As though that was an appropriate way, to show loyalty after a Coup.

He did not summon her though. Csethiro began to suspect the Emperor would find his queen elsewhere. Or perhaps wait until a suitable time had passed so that he could be sure his bride was not involved in an attempt to usurp his throne.

There was really no cause to worry that the Emperor would pick her as his bride.

*

Three days after Winternight an Airship docks at their mast.

A maid woke her, rushed her through getting ready for the day, and shepherded her downstairs. She barely pausing long enough to explain a royal messenger had summoned Csethiro to the formal receiving room.

A cavernous space that had not used in all the time Csethiro had lived at Cethoree.

The man who met her was full elvish, dressed in well-appointed court clothes marked with the Drazhar seal. “We are Csevet Aisava Head Secretary to Edrehasivar VII who bid us come to bring you to the Untheileneise Court.”

He held out two letters and a sealed marriage contract to her. There was a space for her to sign on the contract, but there was no question of if she would do so. Her father had already signed, as had the Emperor.

The first letter was from her father, written in a secretary’s hand, speaking of their famili’s good fortune at having made a successful match to the Emperor.

Self-congratulatory, it had no more space for her opinions than the marriage contract.

The third letter was thin, a single page sealed with a creature that was some mixture of car and sea serpent. When she opened it, the hand was rough, obviously personally written, and it was signed by the Emperor.

To Csethiro Ceredin,

It was not our wish to bind someone to us without care for their feelings, as our father bound our mother.

Were the matter less fraught, we would seek to ask for your hand in a less forceful manner.

We must marry and you have the benefit of being relegated during both the attempted coup and the planning of the assassination of our father and brothers. As well as the latest attempt on our life.

Those few others of marriageable prospects were tied too closely to one plot or the other.

We will meet with you upon your arrival at court to discuss the details that cannot be trusted to a message.

Edrehasivar VII

She folded the letter and placed it with the others, took the pen Csevet Aisava held out and signed the contract.

Since she was a child that she would marry for the benefit of her family. Even so, she has not thought to marry because she had not been involved in attempted regicide.

A husband who did not wish to marry. With two attempted coups in less than a year. Her life would be near forfeit if she did the slightest thing wrong.

Nerves made her hands wish to shake. She was a champion dueler; she has studied military tactics and spent the last year as good as Relegated. She would not be cowed by this.

Csevet Aisava sent guards with her to pack her things. They refused to allow her dueling sword until she insisted. Even then they would have taken it from her if Aunt Arbelan has not interfered and insisted that Csethiro was a fine duelist and used the sword regularly, and it was most assuredly not a threat to the Emperor’s safety.

As though she would be so foolish as to let the guards see her weapon if she planned to kill the Emperor.

She made the airship ride in silence. She might have been a particularly insipid child for all the attention the retinue paid their future Empress.

*

Edrehasivar VII met them when the airship landed. Boxed in by two of his nohechsris.

Her first impression of her husband to be was that he was of a storm cloud made flesh. He was dressed in the emperor’s whites, which only made the gray of his skin and the halo of his black hair stand out more. His eyes were as cold and closed off as a frozen pool.

It was only as she got closer she realized how small he was beyond his aura of power. His nohechsris were both a head taller than him.

Even so, there could be no doubt who was in charge, even if Edrehasivar had not been wearing white. Everyone around them, leaned towards him as though flowers seeking the first light of dawn.

Csethiro lowered herself until a curtsey. It was more in fashion to prostrate oneself, but that had never been Aunt Arbelan’s way.

Now more than ever, Csethiro thought it important to be her Aunt’s niece, finding freedom in her confinement. Rather than her father’s daughter willing to bend to another’s desires in hopes of being rewarded on some future day.

“Welcome Csethiro Ceredin back to the Untheileneise Court.”

“Our thanks, Serenity,” She replied. Straightening, she met his eyes and held them.

She was to be Empress of all the Elf lands. Even if their marriage could not be built on love or even mutual regard, she would not cower from her duties.

*

Csethiro found engagement similar to relegation. It was limiting. She could not be seen with anyone outside of the Emperor’s favor. A mere handful of courtiers and staff left after three attempts on the crown. At least one royal guard followed her everywhere.

Her days were full, even though it felt as though she accomplished nothing. She has been away from court long enough, and it was enough changed that she had to make a study of all the intricacies of interconnectedness. No less detailed than the books of law and military strategy she has studied at Cethoree.

Even her dueling continued. The master of the guard was pleased to learn that she could defend herself. While it would be inappropriate for the Empress to carry a sword, her dresses were fashioned with slits allow her access to a set of long daggers. She added lessons in their use to her sword work.

Csevet became less distant as he learned she was willing to do the work of an Empress even though she didn’t choose the position. It was clear to both of them that his loyalty would ever be to Edrehasivar That did not mean they could not be allies.

The rest of the Alcethmeret’s staff followed Csevet’s lead, and she found herself consulted on decisions of finance and household management. Csevet still cosigned her decisions, and would be until the marriage was finalized. Though he rarely countermanded her, save when she did not know something about her husband.

Her husband was the only part of being an Empress that she could not seem to grasp. He was cordial when they spoke and made sure that they had at least one dinner a week away from the court.

That sadly did not mean they actually spoke. He would listen to the bits of court gossip or matters of the household she brought up. When there were matters he thought her capable of handling, he would ask for her help.

Occasionally, and only ever in public, he would press a kiss to her knuckles.

That was the extent of their relationship. She had practically been closer with Csoru and any time they stayed in a room together for over ten minutes they started fighting.

She could not even rely on him to give a straight answer on which dishes he enjoyed during a given meal.

*

Three months following her engagement and barely a month before their marriage, Csethiro finally forced herself to unbend her pride and ask Csevet for help in how to relate to her husband.

“We are given to understand that his Serenity is quite fond of you,” he replied. To all appearances, he was both sincere and startled that she had even questioned the Emperor’s feelings.

“We are given to understand his Serenity cannot even speak to us of his preferences. Not even to help plan our wedding.”

Csevet’s ears cocked curiously. “His Serenity does not have preferences that he shares with anyone.”

That was absurd. Who ever heard of an Emperor who didn’t share his opinions. Though Csevet was not one for pointless jests. “His Serenity will not share conversation. Not even about such light topics as dancing, fencing or riding. Nor even of books he has enjoyed.”

This made Csevet’s ears droop downward. His eyes lowered a moment after. It was a long time before he spoke again. “His Serenity was relegated, much as you were. Save his relegation was not to an estate that was picked for its occupants comforts. We do not believe he has an understanding of such matters. Nor has there been time to learn since his Serenity has taken the throne.”

That was enough to stop her continued protestations. Her own ears dipped low. Had she not feared seeking Aunt Arbelan sent to such a place? Edrehasivar has been relegated to such places since birth. “We understand.”

“His Serenity enjoys speaking of the Archduke and the Archduchesses,” Csevet replied. A peace offering as subtly given as his previous reprimand for her short sidedness.

*

Edrehasivar did indeed enjoy speaking of his nephew and nieces.

The minute she brought them up at their next dinner, his ears came up to a happy angle. The first time she’d seen them lifted higher than an amused tilt. He spoke at length of Idra’s wisdom and how well he knew his own mind.

Of how good and thoughtful he was when taking care of his younger sisters. Of the girls he spoke less of accomplishments and more of their kind nature. How Ino worried about everyone and Mireän was about to start schooling. How he wished to find her a tutor who would get along well with the girls’ nurse. He seemed to forget all about his food in his excitement to speak of them.

There was no difference in how he spoke of his male heir and his nieces, save it seemed in their age and the interests and knowledge that came along with that.

Edrehasivar was still not speaking of himself, except for all the ways he was.

He was speaking of his male and female heirs as equals. Was planning for his nieces’ education while still worrying about keeping their nurse on to keep them comfortable. Csethiro took a deliberate bite of her meat course, allowing for a moment of silence before she dared to ask her next question.

“Have you spoken with Vadero?” she asked. The other woman had left the court sometime between the first coup and Winter’s Night, but beyond that it seemed no one knew what had happened. Everyone agreed she had not been relegated, but it was almost unheard of for a daughter of the Drazhar to leave the court when unmarried.

Edrehasivar’s ears lowered slightly. Perhaps concerned or curious. “Are you one of her Friends?”

That question said so innocently. As though it was no matter if she sought the freedom of the spinsterhood despite their engagement. “I was not a Friend, but we have similar interests. I had expected to become a maiden Aunt, but not for any wish to be so. Simply I will not bow my head to another if I can avoid it.”

The fact she had been unable to refuse this marriage was implied. Unwise to let such temper out, but a sharp tongue had ever been her weakness.

Edrehasivar nodded. “We are sorry we could not allow you the freedom of being unmarried. That was our wish as well, and we had thought to have enough options that we would not have to force anyone into a match.”

That had not been the answer she had expected.

“Marriage was a prison to our mother. While we cannot give you full freedom to speak your mind in the Court, we do wish you to speak with us about your needs and concerns. We will do our best to see that you need not bow your head when we are in private.”

Only military control kept her jaw from dropping. It did not keep her ears from rising in shock. That was...not even a nobleman’s wife could expect that kind of latitude.

She could not know how well he meant those words, but for the Emperor to even speak them. It was little wonder that he had won over the loyalty of those that worked closely with him.

Edrehasivar continued on as though he had not said something untoward, “Our sister has gone to stay with Friends. She will return for the wedding. Eshevis Tethimar wished most fervently to marry her.”

Eshevis Tethimar, the head of the plot that has killed the late Emperor and his sons. If Edrehasivar had been killed and Eshevis married to Vedero he would have practically been guaranteed power over the throne.

“She does not wish to marry. Even if she did Csevet spoke against the match. Told me of the Tethimadas’ true nature. Even before we knew the depth of their family’s betrayal, it felt wise to send her out of his reach.”

It had been wise, of course. Given what happened, it had probably even seemed like foresight to the court. The way he had said it, though. Edrehasivar acknowledged and respected his sister’s wishes, and even beyond that had taken a servant’s word over that of a noble.

Csethero felt the first flutters of hope spring up in her chest. That Edrehasivar had been telling the truth when he said she didn’t need to bow her head when in private.

She still did not know him enough to love him. The idea of being treated as an equal, though. That was enough to raise color in her cheeks and make her feel a butterfly begin to flap in her stomach. A man who loved his family, the children in his care, and listened to those around him. It was far beyond anything she had imagined when she thought of a perspective partner. “It is kind of you to allow her to make her own decisions.”

Edrehasivar ducked his head, “I know it was not politic.”

“I did not mean it as a reprimand.” Csethero reached out to lay her hand over his.

He jerked back, ears pinned back against this skull. His eyes were large and dark. So different from the icy stillness she expected to see.

“We apologize,” she left her hand laying, palm up on the table, “We did not mean to startle.”

She used her other hand to bring the teacup to her lips, watching him out of the corner of her eyes as she would a skittish horse.

After a long moment, he reached out and joined his hand to hers. His fingers were cool against hers as she threaded their fingers together.

As first steps went, this felt like she had strode across the Istandaätha.


End file.
